Back to New Bark Town
by cellophane prince
Summary: Lyra understands that her actions have consequences, and that Team Rocket doesn't always blast off so easily.


She'd have been more composed if it weren't for the bullet seeds entrenched through her front door and the shattered glass on the carpet.

She also supposed there had to be a first time for everything.

"Our cars are all lined up the street now, Ms....?"

"Lyra, it's Lyra," she said hastily, clenching and unclenching her hands.

Officer Jenny's jaw dropped in surprise.

"Then...you are _the_ Lyra from New Bark Town."

"Well, that is my name and I am clearly in New Bark Town, so yes," she said, exasperated. "Look, you guys took long enough getting here so I sent my mother upstairs with Feraligatr and dispatched the rest of my team to the surrounding houses and Elm's lab next door."

"Well, that's—that's certainly very considerate of you, but it doesn't seem to be any of them that the attackers were after."

"Until I feel everyone is safe, I think I'll keep them there," Lyra responded with a cold tinge. "I think, then, we will send for your mother now that the danger has passed," Jenny said briskly, looking about herself to give instructions to a passerby.

Lyra noticed her own fingers were trembling, the adrenaline wearing away from her body. A small assessment squad of policemen were gathered around the debris strewn across the floor as the flashing lights from cars nearly blinded her from outside. An armored Blastoise filled an uncomfortable amount of space on her doorstep.

"It was Rocket," Lyra said slowly, covering her head in her hands as Jenny put down her coffee on a nearby table and pulled out a notepad. "Are you sure about that claim, miss?" the woman asked beneath a sleek layer of turquoise hair. "I mean, they're supposed to be..."

"I know they're supposed to be finished, but they obviously don't ever know when to quit. I mean, Giovanni was defeated only a few years ago and they all showed up again practically good as new, didn't they?"

Jenny scribbled notes on the paper for a moment before interjecting, "If it is Team Rocket, then Ms. Lyra, do you have any idea which of the recent organizers it may be? Proton, perhaps Ariana...?"

Lyra was surprised at the officer's knowledge of any members, considering the largely absent role the police played during any recent Rocket activity. She sighed. "I wouldn't know, but it was likely one of their grunts who hadn't gotten the memo about the merry group being disbanded."

"Lawless bastards," Jenny muttered as she continued scribing.

"And I wouldn't think there's any need to wonder why _my_ house got targeted. That doesn't need any explaining, I think," she went on, rubbing her arm slowly. She looked at the drapes fluttering in the breeze from the windows. Sharp seeds used as projectiles by Grass Pokemon were stuck in the walls behind the television set. A trained Growlithe was outside sniffing around, picking its paws delicately over shards of glass.

It was a short while before the older woman noticed the girl's faltering assertiveness. "Lyra," she said curtly, "Can I get you some water? Would you mind if we both took a seat?"

Feeling her own hands for some sort of comfort, she reluctantly sat across from the coffee drinker, her body becoming less tense as the situation was scoping steadily further into the past. Her prim pigtails had been assembled hastily, and she scratched at the scalp beneath them now.

"I need to ask you if you, personally, have received any information that you know of prior to this assault on your mother's property, from anyone who may or may not have been involved."

Lyra thought for a moment as she gazed at the uniformed men still swarming the house, resting her elbows on the table. "...None, I'm sure. I haven't noticed anything out of the blue like that. But I think part of it may be the fact that they've never really gone out of their way to confront me in all the contact I've had with them before. I mean, it was always me and my Pokemon who took it upon ourselves to go after _them_. Us and a few others."

"Yes, and we do know of that," Jenny added. Lyra felt an angry flash thinking about other things the police may have known about the Rockets and did nothing to stop them, but instead of expressing it, she continued.

"It was so...different, when I was out there with my own partners, you know? My mother and my neighbors weren't out there with me; aside from Ethan occasionally showing up, no one ever was." Her focus had begun to move away from herself and to the mementos she brought back home that lined the counters and were stuck to the refrigerator with magnets. "When we were out traveling we learned how to be alert at all times, and we all knew how to take care of ourselves. When we went into battle, it was the same thing. And as _crude_ as the method was for this particular event compared to the others," she added, glaring at the violent vandalization within the house, "it was probably still something that could have been avoided if we were, you know, on our feet and out on our own."

She stared at the table, the officer watching her carefully with an analyzing glint in her eye. "It's just...so strange having the situation moved to a completely vulnerable part of my life. I never expected something like this to happen," she said, rubbing her tired eyes with her hands.

"Well," Jenny said conclusively, crossing her legs as she sat up in her seat, "let's just make sure this doesn't happen again."

The crowd of neighbors that had formed in front of the house began to wane under the discretion of the men in uniforms, as Ethan tried visibly to convince the Blastoise at the door to let him in. Lyra looked again at the people milling through the furniture, a weight of foreboding floating stagnant in the air. "And so they say," she sighed, out of earshot of the coffee-sipping Jenny, as she watched her mother descend the staircase in the arms of her Feraligatr escort.


End file.
